Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help dead tadpoles

Took a walk around the pond today and found thousands of dead tadpoles along the bank. They are the greenish brown tadpoles and are of all sizes. There was not a single one yesterday evening when I fed but today thousands. Did not see any fish just tadpoles. Is this a sign that my water is getting to hot or the do to low or something else. Anybody else have this happen? I have not used any pesticides at all and have not had rain to wash anything in from other places.

I haven't seen it happen before. I'll be interested to see the responses.

I would say it's probably a little of both.. Do you aearate? How often? How is your present water quality just visibly?

I do not aireate yet. Still trying to recoop from the construction cost. I do run garden hose in it from ten feet up to cool water and help with o2 about every other day. Visibility is good right at eighteen inches. Water is very low do to drought but still bout twelve feet in deeper areas, but fish seem healthy and are still feeding well for now. I was out right before dark fishing and we caught several yp and res and they all looked healthy, but we did see a lot more tadpoles dying on the surface. probably close to at least a hundred. They were not piping for air but it looked more like they were a hooked fish fighting. Kinda of like a struggle on top of the water with quick burst then flutter down then they would make a long quick run towards bank then go belly up. The ones that have been dead for a while looked bluish?

Wow I'm stumped.. Has to be the heat in the shallows..

Tadpoles and frogs are susceptible to disease just like fish when stressed and in fact share some of the same diseases. There is a fungus that is of concern call the Chytrid fungus. Frogs are also susceptible to ranaviruses. Does the skin look normal on these frogs?

I've had die offs of tadpoles too for no explainable reason.

I'll bet something in the environment is stressing them and causing disease.

On another note is there any crop spraying in your area lately? I've noticed they are spraying in my area even in the drought.

That was one of my first hunches but if that was the case would it not be affecting the thousands of small fry and other critters that inhabit the shallows. I was wondering if some sort of gas could have built up near the bottom do to stratification then as the pond became much shallower due to the drought it got brought up quickly because of the last very windy days and briefly mixed throughout the water. I know frogs are very sensitive about absorbing toxins threw their skin and am just assuming tadpoles would be the same. The frogs could have left the pond to escape it but the tadpoles could not. We did notice a slight odor and see a very thin "film" on the water tonight but I guess that could have also been from all the dead tadpoles. I dont have a clue really just throwing out hunches. My biggest fear is that it may be just the beginning as in the most sensitive species dieng off first due to DO or heat related problems.

Hey Cecil I do not really have any crops close by, The nearest is about a mile away and we have had know rain to wash anything in. I was wondering about disease but have not found any dead frogs whatsoever. We have plenty of live frogs everywhere and I was thinking that if it was a disease it would most likely be affecting the frogs the same as the tadpoles. The tad poles that have been dead awhile are a bluish color. I saw several frogs tonight while fishing and did not notice anything unusual about them.

I know of someone that used copper sulfate and the next morning the tadpoles were belly up.

Just a thought. My tadpoles eat mostly algae and I was wondering if a poisonous type of algae could have developed in this hot weather.

Still finding dead tadpoles along the bank. Not nearly as many now but still numbering in the hundreds. Still have not found any dead fish.